Sunday, 30 September 2007

An archeological expedition on the island Hrútey in Mjóifjördur fjord in Ísafjardardjúp, the West Fjords, have revealed the ruins of a cabin which may have been built during the Viking Era.

According to Ragnar Edvardsson, an archeologist at the West Fjords’ Natural Science Center, diggings had revealed an oval building structure with a double layer of rocks and turf in between that can at least be traced back to the Middle Ages.

“Such thick walls could indicate that the building derives from the Viking Era,” Edvardsson told Morgunbladid. “It was obviously a place where someone lived, probably in relation to mountain dairy farming.”

Monday, 17 September 2007

A bout of torrential rain left a surprising legacy in the garden of one Swede: a Viking treasure trove.

Two coins were uncovered by the rain on the lawn of farmer Tage Pettersson, on the island of Gotland, in early August. He called in Gotland's archaeologists, who last week found a further 52 coins on the site.

Most of the coins are German, English and Arabic currency from the late 900s and early 1000s. But archaeologists are most excited about the presence of six very rare Swedish coins, from the reign of Olof Skötkonug, king of Sweden from 994-1022.

One of the Swedish coins has never been found in Sweden before, although an example has been found in Poland. One of the other coins is only the second of its kind to have been found.

A medieval silver brooch, 16 coins and 253 bits of broken Viking silver went before a treasure trove inquest in Penrith this week when south and east Cumbria coroner Ian Smith declared them officially treasure.

The brooch, which is more than 10 per cent silver, was found on farm land in the Lupton area in April 2006 by metal detectorist Carol Handley.

“It was a stray find in soil,” said Dot Bruns, finds liaison officer for Cumbria.

Thursday, 13 September 2007

A medieval silver brooch, 16 coins and 253 bits of Viking silver went before a treasure trove inquest in Penrith yesterday when south and east Cumbria coroner Mr Ian Smith declared them officially treasure.

The brooch was found on farm land in the Lupton area in April 2006 by metal detectorist Carol Handley.

Dot Bruns, finds liaison officer for Cumbria, said: “It was a stray find in soil. It was broken in three small pieces.”

Wednesday, 12 September 2007

Archaeologists carefully extracted the human remains of two Viking women from an ancient burial mound this week, in an effort to keep them from disintegrating. Their fears proved to be unfounded.

The experts from Norway's Museum of Cultural History in Oslo had been unsure of the condition of the two women, believed to be an Oseberg queen and her servant. They're hoping their bones can reveal new information about them through DNA testing.

The bodies had been sealed in an aluminium casket in the late 1940s in an earlier attempt at preservation. The casket was then replaced in the burial mound's sarcophagus.

Workers at the gravesite southwest of Oslo discovered Monday that the casket was damaged at one end and that it was sitting in nine centimeters of water, believed to be formed from condensation inside the sarcophagus.

OSLO, Norway: Archeologists opened a Viking burial mound on Monday, seeking to learn more about two women — possibly a queen and a princess — laid to rest there 1,173 years ago.

In 1904, the mound in southeastern Norway's Vestfold County surrendered one of the country's greatest archaeological treasures, the Oseberg Viking longboat, which is now on display at the Viking Ship Museum in Oslo.

The ship, which measures more than 20 meters, or 65 feet, was buried in 834 in the enormous mound at the Slagen farm as the grave ship for a rich and powerful Viking woman, according to the Viking Ship Museum.

The remains of the two women, one believed to have been in her 60s and the other in her 30s, were first exhumed during the ship excavation. They were reburied in the mound in 1948 — in a modern aluminum casket placed inside a five-ton stone sarcophagus — in hopes that future scientific methods might reveal their secrets.

Archaeologists opened a Viking burial mound on Monday, seeking to learn more about two women _ possibly a queen and a princess _ laid to rest there 1,173 years ago.

In 1904, the mound in southeastern Norway's Vestfold County surrendered one of the country's greatest archaeological treasures, the Oseberg Viking longboat, which is now on display at the Viking Ship Museum in Oslo.

The 65-foot vessel was buried in 834 in the enormous mound as the grave ship for a rich and powerful Viking woman, according to the museum.

The remains of the two women, one believed to have been in her 60s and the other in her 30s, were first exhumed during the ship excavation. They were reburied in the mound in 1948 _ in a modern aluminum casket placed inside a five-ton stone sarcophagus _ in hopes that future scientific methods might reveal their secrets.

Tuesday, 11 September 2007

OSLO, Norway (Reuters) -- The grave of a mysterious Viking queen may hold the key to a 1,200 year-old case of suspected ritual killing, and scientists are planning to unearth her bones to find out.

She is one of two women whose fate has been a riddle ever since their bones were found in 1904 in a 72 feet longboat buried at Oseberg in south Norway, its oaken form preserved miraculously, with even its menacing, curling prow intact.

No one even knows the name of the queen, but the Oseberg boat stirred one of the archeological sensations of the 20th century two decades before the discovery of the tomb of Egyptian Pharaoh Tutankhamen in the Valley of the Kings.

Scientists now hope to exhume the women, reburied in the mound in 1947 and largely forgotten, reckoning that modern genetic tests could give clues to resolve whether one was the victim of a ritual sacrifice.

SLAGEN, Norway (Reuters) - Archaeologists exhumed the body of a Viking queen on Monday, hoping to solve a riddle about whether a woman buried with her 1,200 years ago was a servant killed to be a companion into the afterlife.

As a less gruesome alternative, the two women in the grass-covered Oseberg mound in south Norway might be a royal mother and daughter who died of the same disease and were buried together in 834.

"We will do DNA tests to try to find out. I don't know of any Viking skeletons that have been analyzed as we plan to do," Egil Mikkelsen, director of Oslo's Museum of Cultural History, told Reuters at the graveside.

As rain pelted down, four men lifted an aluminum coffin containing the bones of two women after digging a 1.5 meter (5 ft) deep hole in the mound where the women were originally buried in a spectacular Viking longboat.

LONDON (AFP) - An archaeologist using radar technology said Monday he has found the outline of what he believes is a 1,000-year-old Viking longship under a pub car park in north-west England.

Professor Stephen Harding used Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) to trace the outline of a vessel matching the scale and shape of a longship, perhaps from the time Vikings settled in Meols, on the Wirral peninsula in Merseyside.

Meols has one of Britain's best preserved Viking settlements, buried deep beneath the village and nearby coastal defences.

Harding, from the University of Nottingham in east central England, is now seeking funds to pay for an archaeological dig to search for the vessel which lies beneath two-to-three metres of waterlogged clay.

A 1,000-year-old Viking longship may have been discovered buried under a pub car park in Merseyside, archaeologists have said.Experts used radar technology to map the location of what they believe could be one of Britain's most significant archaeological finds.

The technology has been used to trace the outline of an object which matches the scale and shape of a longship, possibly from the time Vikings settled in Meols, on the Wirral peninsular in Merseyside.

Meols is known to have one of Britain's best preserved Viking settlements, buried deep beneath the village and nearby coastal defences.

The vessel is thought to lie beneath about 10ft of water-logged clay under the nearby Railway Inn.

Viking expert Professor Stephen Harding, of the University of Nottingham, is seeking funds to pay for a major archaeological dig to excavate the site. He believes the ship could be carefully removed and exhibited in a museum.

Experts have discovered what they think may be one of Britain’s most important archaeological finds – a Viking longship buried under a pub car park in Merseyside.

The ship was located used a high-tech Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) device, which traced its outline under 2-3 metres of waterlogged clay below the car park of the Railway Inn in Meols, the Wirral.

Professor Stephen Harding of the University of Nottingham, who made the discovery, is now looking for funding to excavate the site, and believes that its shape and outline matches that of a 1,000-year-old Norse transport vessel.

The ship was first uncovered in 1938 by workmen who were knocking down the old Railway Inn to be rebuilt further away from the road. They found parts of a clinker-built ship but covered it up again to finish converting the site into a car park.

About Me

I am a freelance archaeologist and Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland specializing in the medieval period. I have worked as a field archaeologist for the Department of Environment (Northern Ireland) and the Museum of London. I have been involved in continuing education for many years and have taught for the University of Oxford Department for Continuing Education (OUDCE) and the Universities of London, Essex, Ulster, and the London College of the University of Notre Dame, and I was the Archaeological Consultant for Southwark Cathedral. I am the author of and tutor for an OUDCE online course on the Vikings, and the Programme Director and Academic Director for the Oxford Experience Summer School.